© Jane Mork Gibson, Workshop
of the World (Oliver Evans Press,
1990).
Chestnut Hill is in the
extreme northwest section of Philadelphia and was a part
of Germantown, originally known as the Sommerhausen and
Crefeld Townships. In 1854 Chestnut Hill was
included in the 22nd Ward of the newly consolidated City
of Philadelphia. Present-day Chestnut Hill is bordered by
the limits of Fairmount Park at Cresheim Creek on the
south and Wissahickon Creek on the west and by
Northwestern Avenue on the north. The eastern border is
Stenton Avenue. Germantown Avenue (Pike) bisects the
community into east and west sections, and the Bethlehem
Turnpike terminates in the center of Chestnut Hill where
it joins the Germantown Pike near the highest elevation
at Summit Avenue, which is 440 feet above the city
datum. 1
The area is not a major industrial center but it does
have an industrial history. An industrial undertaking in
the early 1800s that met with failure was an attempt to
grow silkworms to produce cocoons for a silk
industry. On the other hand, the transportation network
has always been successful. Both Germantown Pike and
Bethlehem Pike were among the earliest turnpikes and were
major avenues leading to the center of Philadelphia from
the rich farmlands and the limekilns outside the city.
Chestnut Hill was a stop on the stagecoach line and
developed commercially along Germantown Pike, which came
to be known as "The Avenue".
During the eighteenth and the first half of the
nineteenth century, several mills were in operation along
the Wissahickon and Cresheim Creeks which were then
included within the boundaries of Chestnut Hill, but most
of the land use was agricultural. The mills were taken
over by the city in the years after 1868 when the land
was designated for Fairmount Park. 2
It is interesting
to note that the intersection of Bell's Mill Road and
Germantown Pike is identified on J.C. Sidney's 1848 Map
of the Township of Germantown as "Mechanicsville," where
there was a store, a blacksmith shop, and several houses
including that of a clockmaker; 3
today the site is
occupied by a Victorian Mansion converted to the Woodmere
Art Gallery. This map also indicates veins of iron ore on
the present-day Morris Arboretum site, and the location
of three mine shafts. It is said that iron for the
famous iron-lace balconies in New Orleans was mined
here. 4
Within the boundaries of present-day Chestnut Hill there
once were grain mills, cotton mills, woolen mills,
fulling mills, carpet mills, and, especially, paper
mills. Early names for roadways reflect
this—Paper Mill Lane (West Mermaid Lane), Barge's
Mill/Spruce Mill/Thomas Mill Road (parts of West Chestnut
Hill Avenue and West Highland Avenue), and Paul's
Mill/Thorp's Mill/Bell's Mill Road. In addition to the
mills on the Wissahickon that were taken over by the city
after Fairmount Park was established, the mills on
Cresheim Creek were acquired by the
Houston/Woodward/Henry Family who subsequently gave the
area to the city as an addition to Fairmount Park in the
early 1900s. Today it is difficult to picture the large
textile mills that were once in operation along Cresheim
Creek at Germantown Avenue, at the railroad viaduct, and
at the McCallum Street Bridge. At the other end of
Germantown Avenue, a short distance from the road on each
side where it crosses the Wissahickon near Northwestern
Avenue, were the paper and grist mills of the Dewees
family; one was in operation as early as 1710 and was the
second paper mill in America. William Dewees and his
brother-in-law Nicholas Rittenhouse, who had married
Wilhelmina Dewees, are reported to have been apprentices
in the first paper mill in the United States located on
Paper Mill Run, also called Monoshone Creek.
5
William Penn's original City of Philadelphia expanded in
size to become today's Greater Philadelphia. The
phenomenal population growth of Philadelphia extended to
the outlying towns and districts that were incorporated
into the city by the Consolidation Act of 1854, and after
the Civil War, settlement in the suburbs increased as
Philadelphians moved beyond the "walking city" of its
earlier years. In mid-century the Germantown and Chestnut
Hill Line (later taken over by the Philadelphia and
Reading Railroad) led to residential development east of
Germantown Avenue near the railroad terminus. The last
quarter of the nineteenth century saw much of the area on
the west side of Germantown Avenue become, first, a
summer resort for the well-to-do, and then an enclave of
homes controlled by Pennsylvania Railroad magnate Henry
Howard Houston (1820-1895) and designed to attract
permanent residents of a selective kind. The stone masons
and workmen who quarried the stone and built these homes
also settled in sections of Chestnut Hill in less
pretentious houses, generally east of Germantown Avenue.
The coming of the railroads to Chestnut Hill made a great
difference in the demographics and the type of activity
in the village. The suburban Germantown and Chestnut Hill
Line was completed in 1854 and terminated at Bethlehem
Pike, east of Germantown Avenue, instead of at Germantown
Avenue near Cresheim Creek as originally planned. This
provided rapid transportation to Germantown and to the
center of the city. The Pennsylvania Railroad's Chestnut
Hill Line on the west of Germantown Avenue was completed
in 1884 and brought with it a great increase in the
upper-class suburban development which has remained the
trademark of the area. The railroad stations of these two
lines and the engineering that brought the railroads to
Chestnut Hill constitute some of the existing industrial
archeology, especially the Frank Furness designed Gravers
Lane Railroad Station (1883) of the Reading which has
been adopted and preserved by the Chestnut Hill
Historical Society. The Pennsylvania Railroad's Chestnut
Hill Station (1884) is typical of the era and was put to
adaptive reuse in 1985 as the Chestnut Hill National
Bank. The great wrought iron Cresheim Valley Viaduct, an
essential element in bringing the Pennsylvania Railroad
to Chestnut Hill in 1884, was declared unsafe and was
demolished in 1988, replaced by a concrete and steel
structure.
The southern entrance to Chestnut Hill along Germantown
Avenue contains a reminder of important industries. A new
shopping center has been built on the site of a quarry
where Chestnut Hill micaceous schist of the Wissahickon
Formation was once cut out of the hillside to build some
of the many grey stone houses for which the area is
famous. Another quarry located between Mermaid and
Moreland Avenues was in operation until just before World
War II. The trolley stop at the foot of the hill and the
Route 23 trolley now operated by the Southeastern
Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) recall the days of
the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company when this was a
major means of transport before the general use of the
automobile and when there were trolleys along the
"Avenue" every five minutes, and more often during rush
hours. In this same area, east of Germantown Avenue near
the foot of the hill, are some remnants of Chestnut
Hill's industrial past—the buildings occupied by
the United Cerebral Palsy Association formerly housed the
Yarnall-Waring Company where brass valves were made, and
the Kurtz Construction Company has taken over the major
part of the building where once ice was manufactured and
later where wine was aged in wooden casks. Skilled
craftsmen and artisans continue to work at the Willet
Stained Glass Studios, the Marcolina Brothers Marble and
Tile Works, and the Filippi Brothers Welding and
Ornamental Iron Works.
The Chestnut Hill Community has adopted the
Chestnut Hill Water
Tower, one of the existing
utilitarian structures, as the symbol of community
activity and of the recreation and playground areas
within the village. The underground springs that fed
the reservoir still cause the playing fields to be wet
at times, and the water tower that provided the
necessary height for gravity water flow to the
village, no longer has a wooden water tank on top but
sports a lively growth of green shrubbery. Located on
the site of the former boiler house and engine house,
a recreational building constructed in 1919 is called
"The Water Tower" and contains the closest thing to a
large public meeting space in the community, an
interesting reminder for a generally non-industrial
part of the city.
During the twentieth century, very little industrial
production has taken place in Chestnut Hill, and this is
likely to continue to be true in the future. In 1987,
Chestnut Hill was designated a National Register Historic
District which includes the homes and businesses of both
the wealthy and the working class alike. The Chestnut
Hill Community Association carefully protects the values
of the "Village" through a quasi-official government
headed by a Community Manager and Board of Directors. The
Chestnut Hill Local is an award-winning weekly newspaper
published by the Association and there is an active Land
Use Planning Committee that sees that zoning requirements
are strictly maintained.
Although it is not generally recognized, the development
of Chestnut Hill has been strongly influenced by two
industrial factors—the curtailment of industrial
activity within its borders by the establishment of
Fairmount Park, and the coming of the railroads which
made the area a viable bedroom community.
1 Sea level is 5.7 feet
below city datum. City Datum is defined by the Department
of Public Works as an established horizontal plane which
is 2.25 feet above mean high water and 7.50 feet above
mean low water in the Delaware River in Philadelphia.
2 See Workshop of the
World—Fairmount
Park.
3 John J.
Macfarlane, History
of Early Chestnut Hill, (1927) p. 131.
4 Germantown Crier, Vol.
37, No. 3, summer 1985, p. 61.
5 D. Macfarlan,
"The
Wissahickon Mills," (typescript, 1949),
p. 71.
Acknowledgements:
Special thanks to
John McIlhenny, Fairmount Park Historian, for courteous
and helpful assistance and for information on the mills
on the Wissahickon and Cresheim Creeks. Special thanks to
Harold E. Spaulding, who contributed information on the
Yarnall-Waring Company and Pio Winery/Willet Stained
Glass Studios. Jefferson Moak compiled a complete
description of the buildings included in the National
Register Historic District of Chestnut Hill for the
nomination in 1985, and I am indebted to him. Richard
Boardman of the Map Department of the Free Library of
Philadelphia was most helpful in providing the typescript
materials and maps that made it possible to write about
the mills, and I am grateful for the cheerful assistance
given. Thanks to Lisabeth M. Holloway, Librarian,
Germantown Historical Society, for her responsive and
knowledgeable assistance. Thanks to Kathryn Shaifer,
Executive Director, Chestnut Hill Historical Society, for
her patience and help. Thanks to Carmen Weber for
scouting out old maps that I would not have seen.
Finally, those persons who were interviewed and are cited
in the text graciously shared technical and personal
information so that I could present the reader with a
better product, and I thank them.
Resources:
Chestnut Hill
bibliography